(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording and reproducing apparatus for optical discs, and in particular, to a recording and reproducing apparatus having a copy-protection function and a method thereof.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Since its commercial introduction in 1982, the audio compact disc (CD) has almost completely replaced the phonograph disc for high-fidelity recorded music, and the distribution of the portable CD player has made it possible to listen to music while moving.
Recently, a recording and reproducing apparatus capable of writing information signals from a disc and writing the same thereon is widespread such that it becomes easy for users to copy commercial discs.
An audio CD is provided with a lead-in region on a radial inner side of a data region in which audio signals are recorded. In the lead-in region, the data information is recorded on the CD such as a time code showing a starting position of each of tracks in the data region, track number of the first and last tracks on the disc and a time code showing the end position of the last track.
However, since there is no information for identifying whether the disc is original one or illegally copied one, it is impossible to prevent the commercial audio CD from being illegally copied.
The present invention has been made in an effort to solve the above problems of the prior art.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method capable of protecting illegal copy by identifying a disc using the information encrypted on the disc.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus capable of protecting illegal copy by creating unique identification information using the track number and address detected from the lea-in region.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus capable of authentication of a user while coping a disc by identifying a copy history of the disc using the disc identification information stored in memory during a previous copy operation and the information on the disc presently inserted into a drive.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus capable of permitting, inhibiting, or limiting copy of a disc using writing speed information as well as the identification information of the disc.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus capable of permitting, inhibiting, or limiting copy of a disc using number of tracks as well as the identification information of the disc.
To achieve the above object, a method for protecting disc copy of the present invention comprises the steps of detecting an identifier of a disc to be reproduced, and determining if a disc copy is permitted or not using copy-protection disc information and the identifier. A recording and reproducing apparatus having a disc copy-protection of the present invention comprises a reproducing drive for reading data from a disc, a recording drive for writing data on other disc, storage means for storing a copy-protection disc information for judging whether a disc copy is permitted or not, and control means for controlling a disc copy from the disc in the reproducing drive to the other disc in the recording drive.